Lost For Words
by ThinksInWords
Summary: She had never been good at talking about her feelings. But she always tries, right? An alternate end to SWAK. Tate


-1Lost For Words

Summary: She had never been good at talking about her feelings. But she always tries, right? An alternate end to SWAK. Tate

AN: This came to me while waiting for the train. I know.

She had never been very good at talking about her feelings. Sure, releasing her anger was reasonably easy, but the softer feelings like sadness, pain, worry and especially love were always so much more difficult to vocalize.

Because love meant pain. She had learned that particular life-lesson early, when her brother lost his first wife to breast-cancer, on his twenty-fifth birthday. And again when she found her fiancé in bed with her best friend, both of them blaming their string of indiscretions all on her, because she was too distant according to them.

Could anyone really blame her for keeping them at a distance, for stubbornly refusing to let them in? Not after that. So again, distancing herself from the people she was supposed to hold dearest was justified. And it remained that way.

After him, she had never said "I love you" to a man she was not related to. She simply could not and would not do it. She could anticipate the men in her life leaving, and she was right every single time. So why try to keep them there by making false promises and false declarations of love? Why bother to lie to them? It wouldn't make them stay.

She wonders when it was exactly that she realized that he wasn't going anywhere, not even when and if she wanted him to leave. She wonders when that idea started becoming more than merely annoying, wonders when he himself became more than merely an annoying presence at work. She also wonders why.

But no matter the whens and whys of it all, she is still standing at his bedside in the blue-lit room, choking on the words she wished she could say.

Now more than ever. How come it always takes a brush with death to make someone realize what was there all along, waiting for this exact moment? How come it took him getting deadly ill for her to realize what he was to her?

He is lying there on the bed, healing from his life-and-death battle against a disease that should have died out centuries ago. His eyes are closed, and his lips are blue. She listens to the sound of his shallow breathing in a way to make herself believe that the danger has faded. That he's alive. The sound is oddly comforting.

It was so close in there, much too close for comfort. His stubbornness saved the day, making sure he would make it through, even though the odds were against him.

Those odds had frightened her when she was laying far from him. She would have loved to say that she knew he was going to pull through, but the truth was that for a moment she had entertained some thoughts of what her life would be like without him. She had carelessly toyed with the idea of having a new colleague who didn't annoy her quite as much as he always did. She had given up on him for a while.

She had tried giving up on him and it almost killed her. So she maintained her false hope of a miracle cure that would bring him back the way he was. She was still hoping when he started coughing up blood, still hoping when his lips and fingernails started turning blue, still hoping when he started gasping for breath.

Too caught up in her false hopes, she barely realized the risks she was taking by staying with him when he was contagious. But then again, she always realized things just a little late. Exactly like the reason why she stayed in the room with the haunting blue with him, risking her life. She found out the reason for that a little late.

This reason was why she was still standing at his bedside, pulling at her pajamas because the words that she desperately wanted to say just wouldn't make it past her lips.

_I love you. I love you. I love you. Why is it so hard to say? I love you._

The words were still stuck in her mouth, her vocal chords were still glued together by fear. No longer with fear for him, but with fear of him, fear of his response. Fear of causing him to leave with those three little words.

Since her ability to speak was rather limited at that moment, she tried showing kindness by softly linking her fingers through his, willing her body language to say what her vocal chords refused to, willing him to understand. She wished she could do more than just hold his hand, but it was all that was possible at that moment. She wished he would understand what she meant nonetheless. She hoped he would.

She got her answer by a squeeze of his hand, barely perceptible because of his lack of strength. He never even opened his eyes to look at her face. And somehow that was fine, because she would not be able to look at him without making a fool out of himself. That was just the way she worked at the moment.

While she made her way to the empty bed right next to his, which still did not feel even remotely close enough, she tried to will her uncooperative vocal chords to at least say something. Of course, in agreement with her general luck, they refused.

"This reminds me of the end of Alien," he suddenly spoke up in a weak, croaky voice that belied how sick he really was.

And even though she still cannot say a word - especially not the words that she wants to say to him the most - to him, even though it still might take months for him to get well enough to work with her again, she laughs. The joyous sound echoes through the room that only seemed to symbolize pain before this. The sound means that he is still the same man she has always known him to be. And she is glad.

The mattress speaks volumes of its own as she turns to see him. Outward appearances deceive, because it seems as if he had not said anything at all. His expression lacks the mischievous grin and sparkling eyes that usually accompany the comments that are meant to annoy her, the ones that secretly make her smile.

As his breathing starts to deepen and he slowly starts falling asleep, she feels the glue on her vocal chords beginning to dissolve. Finally she is free to say what she could not say before, but of course it is a little late again.

"I love you," she whispers softly as she turns away from him to face the opposite wall, finally feeling unburdened enough to be able to sleep.

The second she turns away, his eyes open and a lazy grin stretches his face.

_They have all the time in the world. _

THE END

AN: So? What's the general opinion?


End file.
